20-4 New Ways of Thinking

Thomas Malthus

1798 published “Essay on the Principal of Population” concluded poverty and misery were unavoidable because the population was increasing faster than the food supply, wrote “The power population is greater than the power of the Earth to produce subsistence for man.” thinker who tried to understand the staggering changes taking place in the early industrial age. Looked for natural laws that governed the world of business and economics, predicted that population would outpace the food supply, only checks opf population increasing were war, disease, and famine and said poor would suffer so families to have less children, didn’t believe in government help for the poor,

iron law of wages

David Ricardo wrote this essay, pointed out when wages were high, families had more children, more children meant a greater supply of labor, which led to lower wages and higher unemployment.

John Stuart Mill

Bentham’s chief follower, argued that actions are right if they promote happiness and wrong if they cause pain. He reexamined the idea that unrestricted competition in the free market was always good, favored strong over weak,believed in individual freedom, wanted government to step in to improve the hard lives of the working class, called for vote to workers and women

Early socialist who tried to build self-sufficient communities in which all work was shared and all property was owned in common, felt that if there was no difference between the rich and poor the fighting between the people would disappear, were though of as impractical dreamers

Karl Marx

1840s, German philosopher, condemned to the ideas of the Utopians as unrealistic idealism, new theory “scientific socialism” based on a scientific study of history, wanted reform, leave homeland because of radical ideas, worked with another German socialist Engels, both wrote a pamphlet “The Communist Manifesto” 1848, shared wealth and power amongst all people. But, nationalism won out over class warfare.

utilitarianism

the idea that the goal of society should be “the greatest happiness for the greatest number” of its citizens

socialism

under this people as a whole rather than private individuals would own and operate the means of production

means of production

the farms, factories, railways, and other large businesses that produced and distributed goods

communism

is a form of socialism that sees class struggle between employers and employees as unavoidable

A. Adam Smith: market should be unregulated and not controlled by the government B. Thomas Malthus: Population growth would outpace food supply C David Ricardo: Higher Wages eventually leads to unemployment

Contrast the approaches of utilitarians and socialist to solving economic problems

Utilitarians believed the government should be involved to help the very weakest members, the utopian socialists believed the people as whole would own and operate the means of production in a separate community. All work is shared, all property is co-owned.

Describe Karl Marx’s view of history…

History is driven by economics through the tension between the “haves” and “have-nots,” where the “haves” have always been in control

How have events challenged that view?

Living conditions rose, workers don’t care about class, nationalism won over working class loyalty